Photo: USDA Flickr
Packaged salad greens are an easy way to include nutritious greens into many meals. But the biggest challenge is food safety has many foodborne illness outbreaks have occurred over the years. Between 1998 and 2019, 36 outbreaks have occurred linked to mostly romaine lettuce.
Researchers are working to unravel the causes of these outbreaks. A recent study conducted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service has found that E. coli survived in lettuce harvested in the fall 5.6 times more than the same varieties in late spring.
General bacterial population also varied by season, lettuce deterioration rate factors, and the survival of E. coli affect safety. Lettuce harvested in the fall had a greater rate of deterioration which can lead to better pathogen survival. There is a potential to use the microbiome on lettuce as a food safety indicator of microbial quality in bagged lettuce.
Research continues on this challenging fresh product. Consumer demands of easy to prepare foods continues. But this finding gives paths of research to learn more about intrinsic characteristics for pathogen survival.
